Asian Inspired Crunchy Spring Salad

I always knew that my blogging would someday parlay into something more but did I ever hope it would be two-fold? Never in a million years! First it was food styling (which I’m still doing) and as luck would have it, I recently reconnected with a colleague and a new opportunity was born: I’ve been social media content! How cool is that? I’ve been very fortunate to have been given this opportunity and I thank my lucky stars every minute! And I thought I was just lucky in love! So if you need food related social media content, I’m your gal! Email me at evataylor at bell dot net and we’ll ‘talk’!

I know you’re scrolling ahead to see these photos so let me take the suspense out: they were taken on the morning of April 15, 2014 — I kid you NOT! I was hoping to be yearning for light, salad-ie dishes by now but sadly the weather is STILL not cooperating. Yes, we did have a couple of exceptionally warmish days last weekend but for the most part it’s still soup and stew weather. And like my rebellious feet I am holding out and silently switching gears to a more summery palate!

I took this photo in High Park on my morning walk. Yes indeed it’s pretty…if it were December! Not April 15 for sure.

It was cold enough that the snow stayed all day.

It really is rather beautiful.

As I’m sure most of you operate with similar intentions, I cruise blogs particularly when inspiration evades me and this recipe was no different; it was inspired by the lovely Sawsan’s beautiful Sushi Salad. I must confess that I didn’t record or photograph the first attempt of this creation which was a huge mistake (or was it?) so we actually had this tasty dish two nights in a row! And if it were up to me, it would have been three or four!
The volumes are ball-park, use what you like, omit what you don’t! Easy. If you have celery add it, if you don’t, no worries. The beauty of this dish is the crunch and variety of each and every bite.

Sawsan used ‘cauliflower’ rice but the cauliflower was not nice the day I wanted to make this dish so I substituted Napa cabbage. Since we were having this as a dinner course, I added a marinated BBQ’d pork tenderloin as our protein but chicken or fish would be an excellent substitution.

The avocado adds a certain je ne said quo is, but may be omitted if you’re watching calories.

Asian Inspired Crunchy Spring Salad

Serves 2 as a dinner portion. Please click here for the original recipe.

Ingredients for the pork and marinade:

200 g pork tenderloin

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp lime juice

1 tbsp finely chopped garlic

1 tbsp grated ginger

1/4 cup mirin

1 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 tbsp hoisin sauce

Directions for the pork and marinade:

Remove all fat and silver skin from the tenderloin. Stab it a few times with a fork, all the way around.

Combine the ingredients for the marinade and roll the prepared tenderloin in it to cover. Let rest in the fridge for a minimum of 20 minutes or overnight.

Ingredients for the dressing:

1 tsp soy sauce

1/4 cup rice vinegar

1 tbsp grated ginger

1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

Directions for the dressing:

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Set aside. (may be prepared the day before)

Ingredients for the salad:

(as suggestions, if you dislike something omit it and if you love something, by all means add more!)

5-6 cups of finely sliced Napa cabbage

1 cup cucumber, cubed

1/2 avocado, cubed

1/2 red pepper, cubed

1/2 medium sized red beet (raw, peeled and julienned)

2 green onions finely chopped

a good bunch of cilantro, finely chopped

1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Directions for the salad:

BBQ the tenderloin until the internal temperature reads 71° C or 160°F at its thickest part. Allow to rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

Lay a generous bed of the finely sliced Napa cabbage on each plate.

Sprinkle the cubed cucumber, avocado and red pepper along the outer edge of the base. Add the julienned beets to the centre so it just peeks outside the ring (the beets discolour the Napa so I didn’t want it to bleed all over it).

Garnish with the green onions and cilantro.

After the pork rests for 10 minutes, slice into thin slices. Lay 100 g sliced pork onto each plate and garnish with the dressing and the toasted sesame seeds.

The abundance of colour was no mistake…perfect for a dreary, wet spring day.

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41 Responses

Congrats on the new gig Eva! You’ll have to fill me in sometime. I’d love to hear all about it. And how amazing that your blog has led to a career! That’s fantastic. 🙂 Your salad looks amazing – the tenderloin looks cooked to perfection. Delicious – especially with the ginger. Mmmm!!!!

Those some very pretty photos, but you’re so right. In December, I would have welcomed it but now? The weather gods are messing with us, Eva. We didn’t get as much snow as you guys but we got a good inch and it stayed through the next day.
This is one great salad that you put together. It’s so colorful with just the right amount of crunch. Topping it off with the tenderloin is such a great idea. I bought what I thought was a nice tenderloin and froze it. I thawed it Sunday to prepare and it turned out to be 2 very thin tenderloins. I’d no choice but to roast both, using the leftovers for a variety of sandwiches. Had I known about this salad, one of them would surely have been used as you did here. And I haven’t even mentioned your marinade. I can’t wait to give that a try, too.
Have a wonderful, s**w-free Easter, Eva. 🙂

Thanks John, finding two small tenderloins instead of the expected one larger one is rather disappointing. I suspect you bought it in one of those cryovac packages…I just would like to bring to your attention that if it was cryovac and it says xx% meat protein, it means that the meat is plumped with some type of saline solution to make it appear larger but in reality when you cook it, it will release the liquid and reduce in size as much as 50%! Not to mention all that extra salt that’s left in the meat. I still don’t understand why both our governments think this is an OK practice. When we were down last year, I noticed that it was really difficult to buy non-plumped meat in rural Illinois.

So truly this was from an inspiration. Your photos were always beautiful Eva, so I am not surprised you fell into food styling. I cannot believe the weather on the other side! We have trees and bushes in bloom. Hang in there the warm will come.

Thanks so much Zsuzsa, I am very flattered by your comment. I’m glad that you have blooms already, perhaps you can share a few photos on your blog. I was down in High Park where the Japanese Cherry trees are and they only have very faint signs of blossoms…a couple of years ago, they were already in full bloom!

The salad looks so good but yes, I’d want to enjoy it on a warmer day. Where is your Spring? This is beyond ridiculous. It’s Good Friday today and I’ve been down at the beach. It’s beautiful and warm and around 24C. It’s nice to see the sunshine as we’ve had a lot of grey days and plenty of rain (but I’d better not whinge to you!) Congratulations on your new position – that’s very exciting xx

I am glad that your fall is so mild, even warm but I am jealous that you’re getting better weather in your fall than we are in our spring. Indeed the chill is much easier to take when it’s sunny but today is dull, rainy and grey but on a plus note it was +6°C this morning!

Eva, if I hadn’t bought tons of chicken and lamb, I would go and buy tenderloin: your dish seems a perfect light but elegant treat for Easter (I do pay attention to calories, but avocado is so healthy and delicious, I would never skip it!).
Congratulations for your new professional adventure! And good luck!

Thank you kindly Sissi, I was indeed thinking of you when I put together the flavours for this dish, knowing our affinity to Asian combinations of salty, sweet and sour! I loved the avocado on this salad too, it adds such a wonderful texture against the other crunchy vegetables.

Congratulations on the new food related job, Eva. Though you’ll have to put it into simpler language for my ‘clueless about social media’ brain one day. 🙂

In the city our version of this snowfall wasn’t quite as pretty as yours. I thought it was all a cruel belated April fool joke for a while there.

The salad you’ve created is so lovely as well. You’ve learned a lot in your food styling job I think, not that your skill set wasn’t already very accomplished, because those are impressive plates to serve to family or dinner guests.

Thank you Maria. Yes the snow did look lovely in the Park, our city version was not nearly as romantic too.
Social media is Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. and content is about writing things for that company to talk about. The example I provided for Norma was about cars: in one post I might talk about a new model that was recently released, but in another post I might talk about some amazing road trips to take.
Thank you for your very complimentary words, I really appreciate them.

I did know about the different social media but didn’t know how your posts related to them until you explained it more clearly. There are so MANY of them out there that I don’t know how people have time to spend on them all.

Between cooking, and then posting the recipes to my little LJ and reading and commenting on the more than 20 blogs that I subscribe to, I don’t have a lot of free time for much more. My house cleaning is already a casualty as it is. 🙂

Every once in a while I post pictures of some of my dishes to Fridgg.com and check in on Facebook but that’s about it.

By the way, I’ve redone the pralines (so they actually look like they’re supposed to rather than misshapen blobs) and would love to have you take a look. I did a chocolate version this time. 🙂

What a beautiful and colorful salad, Eva. It definitely says “Spring” but also “Comfort.” I do hope you are past all of the snow and well on your way to warmer temps. Congrats on your new opportunities!

Congrats on your jobs. Pardon my ignorance, but what is “social media content”?
I woke up to snow covered ground Wednesday morning, not as much as you got and all was gone my mid-morning. Freeze alert last night and again for tonight. Glad I decided not to trust the weather pattern and bring my window boxes into the garage at night. A pain, but my plants are safe.
Beautiful and healthy salad, will be making a lot during the warmer days, if and when those days arrive.

Thanks Norma. Social Media content is providing subjects for the client to talk about on Facebook, Pinterest, twitter to name a few. It’s an interesting medium for marketing because the mix of hard sales and value content is about 10-15% for sales and the rest should be value. For example, if I were providing social media content about cars, I might talk about a new model but then in another post talk about some great road trips to take (it links “cars” to the subject but is value content). Hope that helps.

How lucky are you to have not one but two food related jobs! That would make any food writer’s heart sing! Congratulations, Eva, you certainly are deserving! We have the same dratted weather.. more snow yesterday and this stuff is wet but sticking to everything and not melting at all. Today and tomorrow will be like this but we’re crossing our fingers for Easter weekend. I think next time I’ll be booking a holiday in April.. this could happen more and more as the weather patterns are changing. I love this hearty salad.. nothing better than a salad that is a complete meal in itself, the textures and crunch sound wonderful! You’re so creative!xx

Wow! I can’t believe that you still have all this snow! here the grass is starting to lose that beautiful fresh green color and yellow and golden hues are making an appearance!
Thank you kindly for the shout out Eva, your salad is stunning and I am sure the rice vinegar and sesame oil make for a more complex and wonderfully tasting salad dressing

hi Sawsan, it’s been a crazy winter indeed. Our grass hasn’t started to turn green yet, I think it’s too afraid!
The shout out was my pleasure, I loved your version and was extremely excited to have found it.

Still so much snow at this time? O my…that’s COLD! Here we have a really typical April weather…you have minus 1C degree in the morning time and 17C degrees at 2 o’clock…really lovely.
The salad looks fabulous, Eva.